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User blog:Squibstress/A Slant-Told Tale - Chapter 31
Title: A Slant-Told Tale Author: Squibstress Rating: MA Genre: Drama, romance Warning/s: Explicit sexual content; violence; abuse; alcoholism Published: 23/05/2017 Disclaimer: All characters, settings and other elements from the Harry Potter franchise belong to J. K. Rowling. Chapter Thirty-One 15 August 1974 Jaysus, but it was hot. Alastor thrust two fingers under the collar of his Muggle shirt and tugged it away from the sticky skin of his neck. Across the room, Robards was looking bored and uncomfortable, and Alastor could see his hand moving nervously from the table to his side, where Alastor knew his wand was hidden under the Muggle jacket. He caught Robards’s eye and shook his head imperceptibly. No cooling charms. He’d been very clear about that. The Muggles would notice, even if they didn’t see him cast. These endless surveillance gigs were the bane of every Auror’s professional life, and this pub was one of the worst. Smelly, cramped … the place didn’t even have a decent bitter. Which was just as well, Alastor supposed. He could only nurse his drink along so far before he’d have to order another, and at least the pixie piss they served here wouldn’t get him tight. But it was so fecking hot. Alastor looked over at his partner again. He looked like he was about to fall asleep. If he did, Alastor would chew him up one side and down the other. This mission might be tedious, but it was important. He’d followed bloody Fletcher’s tracks all over the country, and he’d finally got a break when one of his contacts heard a rumour that Fletcher was hiding in plain sight, in rooms over a Muggle workman’s bar in Bethnal Green. If Alastor nabbed Otho Fletcher, not only would they put a notorious smuggler of Dark objects in Azkaban, but they might also be able to get something on the Lestrange boys, too. Enough to convince Ackerley to put them under surveillance, anyway. A drop of sweat rolled into Alastor’s good eye. It stung, and he swore, blotting at it with a dirty napkin. He blotted the other eye too, for good measure. Gods, but he hated the non-magical prosthesis! He felt naked without his magical eye, but it would have stood out too much, so it was sitting in a pouch in his pocket, doing no one any good. Never mind. He was twice the man with a wand, even with half the eyes, compared with any Dark wizard. But Alastor would have liked the three-sixty vision his magical eye gave him. Robards was a decent lad, but very green, and Alastor didn’t know if he’d be able to spot Fletcher if the bastard was Glamoured up. Alastor half expected to see Robards’s chin hitting his chest when he took a glance at him, but the young man was still awake, and Alastor saw him rub his eyes roughly to keep himself that way. Good man. He’d make a passable Auror yet. Better than passable, if Alastor had his way. He’d requested Gawain Robards right out of training; it was one of the perks of being the senior field-Auror that he had his pick of the new recruits. Alastor seemed to be in perpetual need of a new partner. None of the other senior Aurors wanted to work with him anymore. Too rigid, they complained. Always trying to take control, insisting everything be done exactly by the book when everyone knew that the best Aurors took the rules more as guidelines that could be discarded when the situation called for it. Well, bugger them. Lazy, that’s what they were, always wanting to take shortcuts. Alastor would take a new Auror anytime. Gave him a chance to train ’em right, and they needed it, now that Amelia Bones had been bumped upstairs to be deputy to the head of Magical Law Enforcement. Since she’d left the training programme, the quality of recruits had taken a definite nosedive, in Alastor’s not-so-humble opinion. But Robards had something, and Alastor aimed to bring it out and shine it up. He heard the doors behind him open, and looked over at his young partner, who was now alert. Alastor could see Robards’s eyes follow the new arrivals, two men in dungarees and workman’s shirts, who walked into Alastor’s line of vision and stood at the short bar. When Robards glanced over at him, Alastor picked up his drink, downed the last of it, got up, and went to the bar. “Oi, there!” he called to the barman, who had served the two new arrivals and gone back to drying freshly washed glasses with a rag. “’Nother Watney’s?” the man asked, stepping over to Alastor. “Yeah, thanks.” Instead of taking his drink immediately back to the table, he took a few sips at the bar, surreptitiously studying the men standing next to him. He concentrated to see if he could sense anything magical about them, but there was nothing. Satisfied that neither of the two was Fletcher, he took up his beer and went back to his seat near the door, signalling to Robards with a quick shake of his head that their quarry hadn’t just walked in. An hour and two more Watney’s later, Alastor was almost ready to pack it in. No one else had come in, and it would start to look suspicious if he and Robards stayed much longer. Besides, Alastor wasn’t entirely convinced that Robards could take much more to drink without getting pissed, which would make him a liability if anything were actually to happen. Alastor was about to signal to the young man that it was time to go, when he heard the door open again. He saw Robards’s eyes narrow as he looked at the newcomer, and Alastor’s hand tensed but didn’t move from the table. The man walked over to the bar, and as he did, Alastor thought he felt the slight thrum of magic as he went past. He caught Robards’s eye and winked, which was the signal to stay ready. Robards’s hand went to his side, and Alastor swivelled around in his chair. The man was talking quietly to the barkeep, leaning slightly on the bar. He was in a Muggle suit, which pricked up Alastor’s suspicions even further. This was a workingman’s bar, and in the three days he’d sussed it out, he’d never once seen a toff come in. Alastor got up and went over to them. Deliberately slurring his words, he put his half-full glass down on the bar and said, “Be a mate an’ get me a fresh one. Thissun’s gone flat.” The man turned toward him, and the bottom fell out of Alastor’s world. It was Gerald Macnair. Alastor didn’t know how, but it was him, looking almost exactly as he had in those photos that had accompanied the French newspaper stories about his disappearance. Alastor’s hand went swiftly and automatically for his wand, but Macnair must have been anticipating it, because he was drawing too, and suddenly, they were duelling. Macnair managed to deflect Alastor’s first Stunner; it rebounded and hit the floor near the bar, scorching the dirty wood. Alastor dodged Macnair’s spell and fired again, but Macnair dropped to the floor and rolled under it. The mirror on the wall exploded in a shower of glass, and Alastor was dimly aware of Robards firing his own spells at Macnair, who, surprisingly, deflected those too. Spells went back and forth, rebounding everywhere. If only he had his magical eye on, he could see exactly what Robards was doing, but as it was, Alastor was a little afraid of being hit by friendly fire, so he shouted at his partner, “I’ve got this! Cover the Muggles!” He dodged a green jet of light, and when he heard the explosion hit the wall behind him, he realised that Macnair was duelling to kill. He fired a Stunner back, and it was rebounded, hitting Alastor in the right arm. He’d had his protection ready, so only the arm went numb, and Alastor was able to transfer his wand to his left hand before it even hit the ground. Which was a damn good thing, because Macnair fired another Avada Kedavra at Alastor, who deflected it, deliberately absorbing some of its energy with his right shoulder, and he couldn’t help screaming when the bone shattered. Through his momentarily blurred vision, he saw Macnair leap agilely onto the bar and drop down behind it. Excellent. He’s hemmed himself in. It was an amateur’s mistake, and Alastor smiled, despite the pain in his arm. He dropped down and crawled on his knees to the end of the bar. He took a second to glance around the room and saw Robards standing over the three Muggle men, who were huddled in a corner booth, eyes wide and jaws slack. Robards made as if to go to the other end of the bar, but Alastor shook his head. He Disillusioned himself and climbed, quietly but with some difficulty, on top of the bar, gesturing with his good arm at the far corner of the room. Robards frowned, but fortunately, he caught on quickly and aimed his wand at the place Alastor had indicated. He looked at Alastor, who nodded. Robards fired, and there was a small explosion when his spell hit the table in the corner. The diversion almost worked—when Alastor looked over the edge of the bar, Macnair’s wand was pointed in the direction of the explosion, but when Alastor edged further out to point his wand at Macnair, a shadow fell across the floor, and Macnair looked up in time to roll out of the way of Alastor’s hex. Alastor dropped down onto the floor next to him, his long experience helping him to ignore the explosion of pain in his broken shoulder, and Macnair kicked at him, missing his face by less than an inch. Before he could get his wand into position, however, Alastor landed his Petrificus Totalus. Macnair instantly went still, and Alastor scrabbled over to him, his movement hampered by his bad arm and the fact that he still held his wand at the ready in his good hand, in the unlikely-but-possible event that Macnair had some facility with wandless and wordless magic. But he wasn’t moving, except for the rise and fall of his respiration. Transferring his wand carefully to his right hand, which by now had recovered enough to hold it, Alastor grabbed Macnair’s shoulder and pulled him over onto his back. His face was fixed in an expression of fury, and suddenly it was superimposed in Alastor’s mind with an image of Macnair sneering at Minerva … calling her a whore … hitting her … telling her she’d not see Malcolm again … “Crucio!” The spell was vomited forth from Alastor’s mouth, and he could feel something like fire moving through his injured arm. Macnair’s body jerked, coming off the floor and landing again with a dull thud, and Alastor’s heart sang along with the sound. He cast again, and Macnair’s arms and legs jerked violently, despite his Petrification, and the acrid smell of urine filled Alastor’s nose. “Crucio!” It felt so good—as if he were suddenly taking in lungfulls of air after having been underwater too long. “Crucio!” Gods, it was good! The sound of Macnair hitting the floor each time was bliss … it was like Honeydukes’ best chocolate … like strong firewhisky … like orgasm … “Moody …” Minerva’s drawn face … “Crucio!” “Moody!” Minerva’s bloodied nose … “Crucio!” “Moody, stop!” Minerva’s dead body … “Crucio!” “Shit, Moody, you’re going to kill him!” Pain ripped through Alastor’s arm as someone grabbed it, directing it away from the body on the floor. He howled and struck out at his tormentor, who let go the bad arm and, impossibly, pointed his wand straight at Alastor’s face. “Moody, relax! Don’t make me hex you!” “Wha …” The toxic haze of fury and pain and pleasure began to clear as Alastor looked at the face of the man who’d grabbed him. Slowly, the image of Gerald Macnair’s sneer faded from his mind, and Alastor found himself looking into the concerned face of his young partner. “Robards?” “Yeah, it’s me. Give me your wand.” “Nothing doing, Robards, I—” “Moody. The bad guy’s down. You’re injured. You’re … you’re not yourself. Give me your wand.” “The Muggles—” “They’re fine. I’ve Petrified them, and the clean-up crew will be here in a few minutes to take care of everything else.” I lost control. Jaysus, did I kill him? Alastor took a deep, shuddering breath, and Robards put a hand on his good arm to help him stand. Alastor shook it off, jarring his injured shoulder again. Instead of screaming, he growled, “Get off, Robards, I’m no invalid!” Robards backed away and busied himself by kneeling down to check on Macnair. “He’s alive,” Robards said, after running a basic diagnostic. “But he’s going to need Mungo’s.” “Filth.” “Who is he?” Robards asked. “Gerald Macnair.” “He someone MLE wanted?” “Nah. MLE thought he was dead.” To cover the tremor in his voice, Alastor spat, “Bastard.” Alastor knelt down next to Robards, who was tending to Macnair’s eyes, spelling them shut so that his corneas wouldn’t dry out too much. When Robards moved out of the way, Alastor forced himself to look into the face that had made guest appearances in his nightmares for the past ten years. And nearly pissed himself. He knew that face, but it wasn’t Gerald Macnair. It was his brother, Walden. ← Back to Chapter 30 On to Chapter 32→ Chapters of Slant-Told Tale, A